How to brief a marketing strategist in 15 minutes

Why numbers come before tactics

A strategist who hears "we want more leads" can only give you a generic answer. A strategist who hears "a booked job is worth $300 in gross profit and we book 4 in 10 callers" can tell you what a call is worth, what you can afford to pay for one, and which channels are likely to deliver at that price.

Owners often start with tactics instead: should I be on Instagram, should I try TikTok, should I redo the website. Those are fair questions, but none can be answered without the numbers. The same tactic can be a bargain for a roofer with $12,000 jobs and a waste of money for a drain company with $300 jobs.

The five numbers, and how to find each one

You can find all five from records you already have. Rough figures are fine; precise ones are better.

1. Average job value

Add up your revenue for the last three months and divide by the number of jobs. If you do two very different kinds of work, such as service calls and replacements, work out each separately. They usually need different marketing.

2. Gross margin

What you keep from an average job after materials and the labour directly on that job, before overheads such as rent, trucks and office staff. If you don't track it, a rough percentage from your accountant or last year's statements is enough.

3. Close rate

Of every 10 people who call or ask for a quote, how many become booked jobs? Count last month's calls or quote requests and the jobs that came from them. Be honest; most owners overestimate this.

4. Call volume

How many calls, texts and emails come in during an average week, in your busy season and your slow season? Your phone bill or your phone system's call log can tell you quickly.

5. Lead sources

Where did your last 20 jobs come from? Go through them one by one: referral, repeat customer, Google search, the map results, an ad, a directory, a truck sign, a home show. Tally them. This is the number owners most often guess wrong.

Turning the numbers into a budget ceiling

With those five figures you can calculate what a lead is worth, and therefore the most you should ever pay for one. Here is the arithmetic, with placeholder figures you can replace with your own.

In this example, a call is worth about $136 in gross profit. Paying up to about half of that, around $68, leaves room for overheads and profit. Any channel that consistently delivers calls below that ceiling is worth scaling. Any channel above it needs fixing or cutting.

Two levers change the ceiling. Raising the close rate from 4 in 10 to 5 in 10, by answering faster or following up quotes, lifts the value of a call from $136 to $170 without spending anything on marketing. Raising the average job value through better pricing or add-ons does the same. That is why good strategists ask about phones and quoting before they ask about ads.

What you want, in a few sentences

Numbers set the limits; your goals set the direction. Add a few sentences on:

• Which jobs you want more of. Emergencies, replacements, maintenance contracts, renovations, commercial work.
• Which jobs you want fewer of. Low-margin work, long drives, jobs you have to subcontract.
• Capacity. How many more jobs a week you could handle without hiring, and whether you plan to hire.
• Area. The towns you serve now and the ones you would like to add.
• History. Anything you have tried before, what it cost and what happened.

A one-page briefing template

Copy this into a text or an email to any strategist. Fill in what you know and leave the rest blank.

Business: [Business name], [trade], based in [City] Service area: [towns or drive time] Average job: $[amount] (service) / $[amount] (replacement or project) Gross margin: about [percentage]% Close rate: about [number] in 10 callers book Calls per week: [number] busy season / [number] slow season Last 20 jobs came from: [source counts] Want more of: [job types] Capacity: [number] more jobs a week Tried before: [channel, cost, result]

That is enough for a useful first conversation. Our contact page explains where to send it.

Mistakes that make a first call less useful

These habits waste the first conversation, whoever it is with.

• Leading with a channel. "We need SEO" skips the question of whether SEO is the cheapest fix for your situation.
• Guessing lead sources. Ten minutes counting your last 20 jobs is worth more than any opinion.
• Hiding the bad experiences. If an agency burned you, say how. It tells the strategist what to check first.
• Ignoring capacity. More leads you can't serve damage your reviews.
• Treating the first call as a test of the strategist's pitch. Treat it as a test of their questions. A good strategist asks about margins, phones and capacity before talking about their services.

What to expect after you send it

A good strategist will come back with questions, a rough view of where your biggest gains are, and an honest opinion about whether paid help makes sense yet. If the reply is a generic proposal that could have been written without your numbers, that tells you something too.

When you are ready, send your brief to us for the free 30-minute consultation. If you are comparing proposals from several agencies, read our guide to vetting a marketing agency next, and the pricing page to see our published plans.